I wrote a poem this afternoon on the train. It has nothing to do with the train itself, but looking out the window, about to nod off, I was watching the cotton from the cottonwoods fly past the train. (There are a lot of cottonwoods along the tracks.)
I am not sure what the poem is about. Maybe getting old. I like poems that hold some mystery, even to me.
The poem has a form I used all last year for my Journal. The date is inscribed in its structure. Just count the words: 3 stanzas, 18, 5, 30.
A blizzard of cottonwoods beside the creek. We drift, you, drift-- Where? What has drawn us here? The white of my beard. The aged skin on the back of my hands. What have I labored to do in the sun's shift-- the cottonseed's drift across half remembered roads. Where did you go?
